In today's digital age, having a solid online presence is crucial for real estate professionals. While many stages of real estate brokering happen in an offline setting, many real estate agencies are starting to use digital means for prospecting. The internet presents many opportunities for real estate brokers to connect with potential home buyers and sellers in real estate markets.
Some folks might decide to work with 3rd party lead generation providers, but nothing beats having your own website. Real estate lead capture works best when you have total control over how you're collecting your data.
Whether you're a real estate agent, realtor, or part of a brokerage, your website serves as a digital storefront, showcasing your expertise and available properties to potential clients. Most realtor websites, when done well, can be a great tool in generating leads and brand building, thus helping agents increase brand exposure.
If you are in real estate and looking to create a new website for your business, using the best real estate website builder can make your work a lot easier.
This article will guide beginners in choosing the best real estate website builder, covering why every real estate business needs a website, what to look for in a website builder, and exploring the best options for various regions within Asia.
Why does every real estate business need a website?
The real estate industry is highly competitive, and having a strong online presence can be a game-changer for real estate agents and businesses.
On top of that, compelling reasons for having a website include everything from building a strong brand reputation to generating leads and sales. These are some of the reasons for having a real estate website.
1. Lead generation
A well-optimized website acts as a powerful lead generation tool, attracting potential buyers and sellers to your listings. With so many new property launches and resale property in the market, you are in a competitive space where getting the word out fast and early enough can mean a world of difference to your eventual sales.
2. Always-on office
You might not be available all day to facilitate enquiries, but your website serves as a virtual office that is open 24/7, providing potential clients with information about your services and properties.
3. Deploy more marketing tactics
Your website is the cornerstone of your real estate marketing strategy, providing a platform to showcase properties and market your services effectively. By having a real estate website, you can integrate your website with social media and other marketing tools. This enhances your digital marketing efforts, reaching a broader audience.
On top of that, by providing potential customers with sufficient information about the properties and projects that you are marketing, you will be able to attract people with higher interest, thus generating better leads.
4. Build trust and a strong brand
A professional-looking website with testimonials and property listings builds trust and credibility with your target audience. This would, in turn, help you build a strong and reliable brand, and more importantly, a loyal clientele.
How to pick the right website builder for your new real estate website?
Before we head straight into recommending best website builders, here is a quick checklist of things to look at before you embark on building your dream real estate website:
- Integration features: IDX Integration, CRM, Social Media
- Ease of use
- Price
- Customization options
- Customer support
- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) tools
Integration features
In order for your real estate website to assist you in providing information and generating leads from interested customers, you'll need to look for IDX integration for property listings, CRM functionality for managing client relationships, and social media integration for broader reach.
Internet Data Exchange (IDX) is often used as a term to cover policies, standards, and software pertaining to the display of real estate listing information on websites. With IDX implementation on your website, you would be able to display listings and allow your customers to search for active listings.
As such, when looking for the best website builder, you definitely want to look into picking one that allows for easy IDX integration on your website!
Editor's Note: Learn more about implementing IDX with GoDaddy's website builder offerings on our community help page!
Ease of use
Not all website builders are made equal, but the best website builders should aim to make your live easier! When evaluating website builders, definitely look for one with features that you are able to use with ease. For beginners, most easy-to-use website builders offer drag and drop options that does not require you to be equipped with complex technical know-how. Some might offer more customisable options that may require basic technical knowledge.
Whichever option you may choose, always strike a balance between what is feasible and what is achievable! On top of that, you should look out for the available help and support options each website builder offers. For example, GoDaddy offers support via multiple channels such as email, live chat, phone and WhatsApp! This would allow you to get timely help should you run into any issues with
Price
Depending on the features that you are looking for, an affordable pricing point is definitely something to consider when you're choosing a website builder.
If you are just starting out with your real estate business or new to website building, pick a starter package and explore its features. After that, decide if you would need to upgrade for a more advanced plan by evaluating the add-ons that you can get by paying more!
Customization options
The ability to customize website templates to match your brand is essential for creating a unique online presence. For example, GoDaddy's Website Builder comes with many templates tailored for Real Estate websites.
Customer support
For any beginner, building your own website can be a daunting process. This can be made worse if you run into any problems. Therefore, when choosing a website builder for your real estate website, ensure that the provider is able to provide reliable customer support. This ensures that any issues are resolved quickly, minimizing downtime.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools
For a website to be easily discoverable via Google search, it needs to be search engine optimized. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a set of tactics that increase the chances your website will rank high on the search engine results page for certain keywords.
Some tips to ensure a well optimized site include great content and a good browsing experience. The reality is, having to deal with SEO for a website can be very daunting for a lot of beginners. As such, when you are picking a website builder, look for one that comes with SEO features. This would give you a good head start on getting your website optimized for traffic.
Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced web designer, website builders allow you to create a new website within minutes using the drag-and-drop editor. You don’t even need to have coding knowledge, it’s that simple.
Sounds like a tool you need? Great! We’ve shortlisted four of the best real estate website builders that may pique your interest.
Best real estate website builder
1. GoDaddy
GoDaddy has a comprehensive range of web products and services that made it one of the most preferred partners for real estate businesses wanting to establish an online presence. GoDaddy’s offering comprises:
- Domain name search and purchase
- Web hosting services with expert hosting support
- Managed WordPress for building and managing WordPress websites
- Digital marketing suite to help businesses engage with online customers
- Website builder to create a brand new website without web design knowledge
GoDaddy website builder stands out as the best real estate website builders in the market in a few ways. Firstly, the price plans are the most affordable amongst the four website builders listed in this blog.
GoDaddy Website Builder pricing
- Basic plan: starts from USD$9.99 per month
- Standard plan: starts from USD$11.99 per month
- Premium plan: starts from USD$14.99 per month
It also has an extensive range of user-friendly features that not only support easy development of real estate websites but also seamlessly market the business to online customers with built-in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) tools.
GoDaddy has also launched Airo, an AI-fueled, customizable experience included with any new domain purchase. With Airo, once you have purchased your domain and Website Builder subscription, you will be able to build a Real Estate website simply by answering a few simple questions.
Check all out the available Real Estate website templates from GoDaddy here.
What’s impressive is GoDaddy’s use of Artificial intelligence (A.I.) to assess the website’s traffic and analyse where the website is doing well and which areas require more adjustments. If you are new to website builder, choose from the wide selection of templates available to help you get started easily!
Importantly, real estate businesses can leverage the analytical data to strategise more effective online marketing campaigns to achieve their business goals.
GoDaddy Website Builder: Key features
- 24/7 customer service hotline
- Hundreds of website templates
- A.I. powered feature to build your website and assess online traffic
- Built-in marketing tools
- Free images for building a website
2. Webflow
Webflow is another user-friendly website builder that caters to those who have no coding knowledge. Even though Webflow’s price plans are not the cheapest, the highly customisable platform is often a preferred choice for web designers who don’t enjoy coding but want a flexible interface to customise their designs.
Webflow pricing
- Basic plan: starting from USD$14 per month.
- CMS plan: starting from USD$23 per month
- Business plan: starting from USD$39.00 per month
Webflow's interactions and animations tools empower designers to build complex, rich animations without using codes.
Webflow has over 500 website templates. Real estate businesses are spoilt for choice and can more easily locate a design that resonates with their brand image. What’s also worth mentioning is Webflow’s animations tool that builds rich animations without codes. Businesses can make use of this feature to create interactive experiences when browsers engage with the websites.
Webflow’s content management system (CMS) is another great feature to have. It allows direct edits on the webpage without accessing the backend of the website. This means real estate businesses can conveniently update their content without spending additional costs to hire third-party developers to maintain and update their site content.
Webflow key features
- Over 500 website templates but mostly at additional cost
- Interactions and animations tools
- SEO tools
- Content management system
- Free to use before the website is launched
3. Squarespace
If you’re looking for the best real estate website builder with the most extensive templates, Squarespace is your choice. This is an easy-to-use website builder with many award-winning web designs that can be customised to suit real estate business needs. In terms of pricing, it is on par with Webflow, but less competitive when compared with GoDaddy.
Squarespace pricing
- Personal plan: USD$16 per month
- Business plan: USD$23 per month
- Basic Commerce plan: USD$28 per month
- Advanced Commerce plan: USD$52 per month
Like other website builders, Squarespace has competitive built-in SEO and analytic tools to support real estate businesses in their online marketing and performance tracking. What makes Squarespace interesting is its ability to seamlessly integrate popular apps onto Squarespace websites. Real estate businesses that utilise the Squarespace website builder can conveniently integrate external platforms such as their social media accounts. This way, their websites can display content from their social profiles or automatically push content to their social media accounts.
Squarespace also has a mobile editing feature that offers a new way of managing website content. Business users just need to download the Squarespace app, available in Android and iOS, and they’ll be able to edit their web content even when they are on the go. This feature is extremely useful for real estate agents who are always on the road but still need to ensure their websites are up to date.
Squarespace key features
- 24/7 email enquiry
- An extensive list of templates and award-winning designs
- Built-in SEO tools
- Built-in analytics tool
- Connected services to integrate with popular apps
- Mobile editing
Editor’s Note: Want to know how to choose a domain name for your real estate business? Read this article for 5 useful tips.
4. InCom
InCom has positioned itself as the best real estate website builders designed solely for the real estate industry. It integrates some of the most relevant real estate-specific features and functional tools such as mortgage calculators, home valuation tools, price alert signups, leads generation, CRM and social media ads creation features. There is even an event calendar for scheduling property viewing dates.
InCom is more expensive than the other web builder on our list. This could be because the builder is targeted at the real estate industry and the features are designed with real estate businesses in mind. One key highlight is InCom’s IDX-ready feature. With IDX integration, real estate businesses that leverage the InCom website builder can connect to their local multiple listing service (MLS) to integrate its real estate listings into their websites. This can inject a lot more valuable content onto the website and increase engagement between browsers and real estate agents.
Looking at the bigger picture, InCom’s bigger price tag could be justifiable since it brings substantial content that other website builders can't provide.
Does this mean InCom is the best real estate website builder? It depends if real estate businesses love InCom’s dedicated features and IDX connections. Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder.
InCom pricing
- Agent real estate websites: US$49.95 per month (plus US$249.95 setup fee)
- Google Ad Words Management: US$100 per month
- Facebook Ads Management: US$100 per month
- Marketing services: US$45 to US$300 per month
InCom is one of the very few website builders that provide dedicated online marketing services for real estate businesses. Even though the service is chargeable, it can still be quite a draw for real estate agents who want to have a lead-generating website but don’t have the time or manpower to manage it.
However, Incom‘s limitation lies in the small supply of design templates. Businesses that are fussy about website designs may have to compromise or spend US$4.95 for another template.
InCom key features
- 24/7 email enquiry and phone support (U.S. business hours)
- IDX-ready to integrate external real estate listings
- 17 website design templates
- Google Ad Words and Facebook Ad management (monthly fee applies)
- Marketing services (monthly fee applies)
- Built-in analytics tool, leads generation tool and CRM tool
Is WordPress good for Real Estate websites?
WordPress is an excellent choice for real estate websites due to its flexibility and extensive range of plugins. It offers:
- Real Estate Plugins: Plugins like WP Real Estate and Easy Property Listings provide advanced functionality for managing listings and IDX integration.
- Customization: With a vast library of real estate templates and themes, WordPress allows for significant customization.
- SEO Capabilities: WordPress is renowned for its SEO optimization capabilities, helping boost your site's visibility.
- Community Support: A large community of developers provides ample resources and support for troubleshooting and enhancements.
However, given the requirements for a real estate website, it is important to note that you might need more advanced technical skills if you wish to build your website using WordPress. Weigh your options, and don't be afraid to seek professional help if you have decided that building your real estate website on WordPress is the way to go.
Simplify your website creation process
Using a website builder can make your real estate website creation process so simple and efficient. Because it is already packed with all the right features and tools, you’ll save a lot of money and time scouting for additional plugins. Even professional web designers use website builders, so why not give it a try. All you need to do is to find a website builder with all the features that answer your objectives and you’re on your way to creating a marketable website. With the help of a good real estate website, it can boost your real estate business!
FAQs for Building a real estate website
Q: Which is the best template for a real estate website?
A: The best template depends on your specific needs, but look for real estate-specific templates that offer customization options, IDX integration, and responsive design. Platforms like Wix, Squarespace, and WordPress offer a variety of high-quality real estate templates.
Q: Which hosting is best for a real estate website?
A: For WordPress sites, hosting providers like GoDaddy are highly recommended for their reliability and speed. For other platforms, ensure your hosting provider offers excellent uptime and customer support.
Editor's Note: This article was first published on December 26, 2021 and updated on January 2, 2025.
